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http://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2009/06/29/daily17.html

Business First of Columbus

Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 3:29pm EDT | Modified: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 5:13pm

Antioch College to reopen

Yellow Springs will once again have an independent college, but it may take two years before students will walk the grounds at Antioch College, officials announced this week. The boards of Antioch University and the Antioch College Continuation Corp. — an alumni group that had been fighting to keep the liberal arts college alive — signed an agreement last week to transfer the college and its assets from Antioch University to the alumni group.

The transfer will occur in late summer, according to the Great Lakes College Association. The sum value of the assets transferred, including the endowment, the college and Glen Helen nature preserve, will amount to more than $6 million.

To reach the agreement, following more than a year of work, Richard Detweiler assisted a task force comprising alumni and trustees who negotiated the details finally accepted by both boards. “The path to this outcome was long and complicated,” Detweiler said in a news release. “And while there were discouraging moments, they never gave up.”

The target date to implement the full agreement is Aug. 31. The transfer of assets cannot occur until a list of conditions have been met, including required reviews and approvals from external agencies such as the Ohio Attorney General and representatives of the university’s bond holders. Because of the regulatory approvals required to open a college, and the amount of work required to renew the campus and put in place its educational program, the alumni group anticipates it will be about two years before it is ready to accept new students.

In May 2008, officials at Antioch University confirmed that negotiations broke down between Antioch College and the Antioch College Continuation Corp. to keep the college open. The college had seen declining enrollment and had 222 students as of fall, 2007. Antioch’s board of trustees announced its intention to temporarily close the college in June 2008.

Antioch boasts famous alumni including Coretta Scott King and Rod Serling, creator of the “Twilight Zone.” It has a rich history dating back to its founding in 1852.

http://chronicle.com/news/article/6719/antioch-alumni-strike-deal-to-take-control-of-closed-college

CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

News Blog June 30, 2009

Antioch Alumni Strike Deal to Take Control of Closed College

An Antioch College alumni group has hammered out a deal to take control of the shuttered college, which is now owned by Antioch University. After years of decline, Antioch College declared financial exigency and suspended operations in 2007.

However, the college’s intensely devoted alumni have been working for the past two years on a college-continuation plan, which has hit roadblocks in the past. Another deal to take over the college fell apart last year.

Now, it seems, the alumni have cleared a major hurdle. The alumni association will pay $6-million to obtain the college’s endowment, its campus, and a nature preserve near the campus, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. The deal is contingent on approvals from state officials, including the attorney general of Ohio, and from the university’s bond holders.

Even if those conditions are met, there is still work to be done before Antioch can reopen. Buildings on the 150-year-old campus are in desperate shape. The alumni association has been raising money to reopen the college, but the costs of renovation, combined with the dismal economy, may prove challenging.

However, even amid tough times and the controversy of the college’s closing, the alumni had raised $10-million toward the renewal of the campus and its reopening, said Matt Derr, the Antioch College Continuation Corporation’s chief transition officer.

“I think the exciting opportunity that we have is that we can create a business model for this economy,” he said. “I say this with my tongue firmly in cheek: We’re not dependent on endowment income. … We tend to think that we will embrace this economy, stay small, and fund a small program.”

He said that the campus needs about $25-million in renovation and maintenance. Some buildings on the campus will be demolished before the college reopens. Mr. Derr said that the campus’s historic structures would be preserved — that, in fact, they are in better shape than some of the buildings from the 1950s and 1960s.

In an article in the Yellow Springs News, Mr. Derr said that the college would start out small after reopening. Its budget would be $4.5-million, about a third of what it was in 2007. The college, which would get 60 percent of its revenue from tuition, would enroll 70 students in its first year and slightly more than 200 after five years, according to plans, the article says.

—Scott Carlson

http://newstalkradiowhio.com/localnews/2009/06/alumni-give-6-million-to-save.html

WHIO Local News

Alumni Give $6 Million to Save Antioch College By Mike Ivcic @ June 30, 2009 1:24

DAYTON, Ohio – An area school will reopen after a group of alumni come to the rescue.

Antioch College in Yellow Springs has been closed because of financial problems, but an alumni group has a conditional agreement to operate the school and reopen in two years.

The group agreed to pay parent Antioch University $6 million for the campus and the college’s endowment. The school is suffering from declining enrollment, a heavy dependence on tuition, and a small endowment.

The college in Yellow Springs is the flagship of Antioch University. The institution has campuses in Seattle, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Calif., and Keane, N.H.

The agreement is contingent upon approval from the Ohio attorney general’s office and university bond holders.

http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/springfield-news/toasts-cheer-college-deal-185015.html

SPRINGFIELD NEWS SUN Toasts cheer college deal

Agreement clears the way for establishing a new, independent Antioch College.

By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer 9:06 PM Tuesday, June 30, 2009

YELLOW SPRINGS — Winds Cafe patrons clinked their glasses in celebration of a new, independent Antioch College.

“People were toasting to new beginnings and a hopeful new venture for this college that’s meant so much to the town for well over 150 years,” said Sam Eckenrode, a Yellow Springs real estate agent and newly elected member of the Antioch College alumni board.

The boards of Antioch University and the Antioch College Continuation Corp. announced an agreement on Tuesday, June 30, for the creation of the new college. The corporation will pay $6.08 million to obtain the Antioch College campus, its endowment and Glen Helen nature preserve.

Both boards hope to transfer the assets by Aug. 31 if all conditions are met. Plans call for a small, first-year class in fall 2011.

“It’s an important day for Yellow Springs,” Eckenrode said.

Jillyanna Morris of Glen Garden Gifts said the florist “delivered lots of flowers all over town congratulating various people.”

Phillip Bottelier of Yellow Springs said he hopes the college doesn’t make the same mistakes that caused it to close in June 2008.

“The only way to survive is to really get innovative,” Bottelier said. “So I ’m hoping they’re not going to try to stick to the status quo anymore, but really try to make changes.”

For past stories about Antioch College’s closing, go to DaytonDailyNews.com

http://www.ysnews.com/stories/2009/07/070209_ACCCagreement.html

YELLOW SPRINGS NEWS July 2, 2009

Tentative deal reached for revived Antioch College

By Diane Chiddister

On Tuesday, June 30, the boards of Antioch University and the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or ACCC, announced that each had unanimously voted in favor of a set of agreements that aim to create an independent Antioch College in Yellow Springs. The announcement took place on the deadline date of the year-long effort to create an independent college.

While the two groups both approved the agreements, the deal between the entities is not yet done. The target date for the final asset purchase agreement is August 31. At that point, if specific conditions are met, the ownership of the college will transfer from the university to the ACCC, which is made up of college alumni.

The leaders of the alumni effort feel optimistic that the conditions will be met and the final agreements legalized, they said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

“As a group of people we have faced significant challenges, and we’re well positioned to deal with the challenging things remaining,” said ACCC Chief Transition Officer Matt Derr, referring to the university and ACCC representatives who have worked together this year to achieve agreement. “The challenges we face now are nothing compared to what we’ve been through.”

This is the the third alumni effort to create an independent college since the Antioch University trustees announced in June 2007 that the college would close the following year. The first two alumni efforts were not successful.

This effort has succeeded so far because of a “change in the tone and the kind of dialogue”, in the negotiations, Derr said in a conference call on Tuesday. That change in tone began when the Antioch University Board of Trustees took what Derr described as a “bold step” in June 2008 to ask the alumni to work with the trustees to create an independent college. A task force composed of Derr and ACCC Chair Lee Morgan, along with Antioch University Trustees Dan Fallon and Jack Merselis, met regularly throughout the year, along with Rick Detweiler of the Great Lakes Colleges Association, or GLCA, who acted as honest broker of the process.

The process was daunting, according to Antioch University Board of Governors Chair Art Zucker in the conference call. Initially, the alumni and university leaders faced about 100 issues to be resolved, and they worked their way through them.

“It was the willingness to sit down and labor constructively toward our common goals” that helped the effort succeed, Zucker said. “That commitment by the board and the alumni made it work.”

According to Morgan in the conference call, “There was never any question of a lack of good faith on either side.”

Three main areas remain to be resolved, according to Zucker. The first area is receiving approvals from external agencies, such as the Ohio attorney general. The second is looking at how the transfer of college assets, including the campus and the college endowment, from university to the alumni will affect the university bond holders, who hold bonds on university buildings at Antioch University Seattle, Antioch University New England and the new Antioch University McGregor building. The third area is reaching agreements between the university and the alumni on such collaborative efforts as sharing the Antioch College library and other resources.

Most of the remaining work to be done is legal and will be accomplished by attorneys, according to Morgan on Tuesday. In the next two months, he plans to continue fundraising efforts and Derr will focus on program issues for the new college.

If the conditions are met, the ACCC will at the end of the summer transfer $6,080,000 to the university. At that point, the ACCC’s financial obligation to the university will be complete, Morgan said. According to Antioch University Chancellor Toni Murdock in the conference call, a significant portion of that $6 million may go to the university bond holders.

While the ACCC will owe no more money to the university, it will continue to raise funds to refurbish the campus, Morgan said.

If the final agreement is reached, the ACCC will take control of the historic Antioch College campus, including Glen Helen and the Coretta Scott King Center. The university will retain ownership of WYSO Public Radio and Antioch Education Abroad.

While the ACCC does not yet have access to the college campus, it is working on finalizing details that will allow it to do so, according to Morgan, who said the ACCC hopes to have access before the August 31 deadline.

It’s likely the college will not be ready to receive new students for about two years, according to a GLCA press release on Tuesday.

If the effort to create a new college is successful, the exact relationship of the future Antioch College and Antioch University is still unclear, according to Zucker. However, what is clear is that the two institutions will have one.

“There will be a continuing relationship,” Zucker said. “We share many values.”

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com

The afternoon’s AP story in the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/education/01brfs-ALUMNIGROUPT_BRF.html

NEW YORK TIMES National Briefing | Midwest Ohio: Alumni Group to Buy College

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: June 30, 2009

Antioch University agreed to transfer the campus of the financially struggling Antioch College to an alumni group that plans to turn it into an independent school. But any reopening of Antioch College is at least two years away and hinges on a list of conditions. The university temporarily closed the college in Yellow Springs a year ago because of financial problems caused by declining enrollment, a heavy dependence on tuition and a small endowment. The college was the flagship of Antioch University, which also has campuses in Seattle, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Calif., and Keene, N.H. The alumni group has agreed to pay the university $6 million for the campus, located about 15 miles east of Dayton, and the college’s endowment. The transfer of assets cannot occur until a list of conditions have been met, including approval from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and university bond holders.